Greeter Training at Downtown Disney Guest Relations!

Yesterday and today I had my Greeter training at DTD. My trainer's name was Christine who is called "Christine the Machine" by nearly everyone and Kyle who was shadowing to become a trainer. Both were really helpful and knew so much about DTD. Lauren, another PI who is extending from Magic Kingdom was also training with me.

So DTD is a big place. It is actually 1.5 miles from end to end. The first day of our training was focused on the Marketplace side. The purpose of these two days was to learn the greeter role at DTD. Basically it is our job to create more of a Cast Member presence at DTD, answer guest questions and welcome them to DTD. The greeter positions rotate with the lobby and West Side window locations. What is interesting is the majority of Cast at DTD aren't really Cast Members at all, they are operating participants, meaning they work for an outside company.

We went into every shop and resturant DTD has to learn more about what they have to offer our guests, as well as learning where the ATM's and restrooms are. We got to learn some really neat things about some of the places we went into, like getting to see how they print the T-shirts at the Hanes Create a Tee and even getting to see the kitchen at T-REX! Which interesting enough has two full kitchens, one for even numbered tables and one for odd numbered tables. Another interesting fact I learned is that the bars at Ragland Road were REAL bars from Ireland, they actually packed them up and shipped them here for the restaurant. We even got to eat lunch at Pollo Camperno.

The day was exhausting because of all the walking around we did. We did get to play some scavenger hunt type games to learn more about the stores so it was fun over all. However due to all the changes coming to DTD we were cautioned that things would be moving or be replaced by other things.

Today we did it all over again but on the West Side. The West Side is home to DisneyQuest, House of Blues, Cirque du Soeil and other shops and restaurants. We started off with a tour over at Cirque, which is celebrating it's 15th year at WDW. We got to see some cool backstage things today because the theater is dark  tonight (meaning there are no performances).

Later, Lauren and I had a scavenger hunt inside DisneyQuest.  If you aren't familiar Disney Quest is a 5 story interactive amusement park. It is like an arcade but also has several virtual reality games. We played a Pirates themed game and made our own roller coaster at Cyberspace Mountain. They even had a "Fix it Felix" game from Wreck it Ralph. It really is a hard game to play.

We also did a tour of AMC, and I got to see their Fork and Screen theater, where you can get food served to you. It looks really cool and I think I want to go sometime. We did another scavenger hunt later at some of the stores and finished by taking our assessment for Greeter training. We both passed! Tomorrow is "Our Town" which is the DTD property orientation.

Animal Kingdom GR Photos

About a week ago two other interns and myself got to work early to take photos around Animal Kingdom in our full plaid glory.  Just thought I would share since this chapter of our lives is coming to a close. The other interns in the photos are also extending their internships until June. Mehlanie will be going to Magic Kingdom and Mark will be at Epcot. If you ever see them there be sure to say "Hello".